The Only Thing Mitt Romney Has To Fear Is Mitt Romney Himself

Mitt
Romney has repeatedly said that President Barack Obama
inherited an American economy in recession and only made it
worse.

"He didn't create the recession, but he made it worse and
longer," Romney said during the June 13th New Hampshire debate.

That assertion (as a matter of fact) is debatable: the National
Bureau of Economic Research, which tracks and officially bookends
American recessions, says the recession ended in June 2009.

Worse, though, Romney recently
denied having ever claimed such a thing. "I didn't say that
things are worse," he told an NBC reporter
last week. "What I said was that the economy hasn't turned
around."

Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, in
one of the best examinations of Romney's shortcomings as a
candidate that we've read, argues that the "made it worse"
episode demonstrates Romney's weaknesses as a campaigner:

"This incident is not just an isolated flub. It's a reminder of
Romney's chief flaws as a candidate. One is his habit of eagerly
changing any position whenever he can gain by it. Another is his
tendency to deny having done so."

Chapman says that Romney, as the Republican front-runner in the
race to replace Obama, should be debating the administration's
economic message. Instead, Chapman writes, "he's debating
himself, and he's losing."

"By bungling his economic message, Romney revives the suspicion
that he can't stick to a position or stick to the facts. He also
undermines his main advantage: the belief among many Republicans
that the economy will be the deciding issue and that Romney, with
his business background and managerial acumen, is best suited to
exploit it."